Monday, April 20, 2009

LGBT advocates have not been outspoken on The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), a piece of legislation that would compliment the Employment Non Discrimination Act in providing protections for all workers and much needed ones for LGBT employees.

The Employee Free Choice Act would make it easier for employees to unite and form coalitions and unions to fight unfair labor practices, and to advocate for living wages, health benefits, and job security.

How will this legislation help the LGBT community:

Increased union representation will lead to a higher standard of living for all Americans especially people who make significantly less income (transgender people and queer people of color).

There are no federal protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation/gender identity but often unions as a collective will have such a policy in place to help remedy the situation.

EFCA will help LGBT people bargain for more benefits including, inclusive language for LGBT families in the Family Medical Leave Act, offering domestic partner health benefits, removing transgender health exclusions, passing of pension benefits to same-sex spouse or their children.

Also Kip, may I direct you to prime examples of combined activism between the LGBTQ community and labor such as the Coors Boycott led by Harvey Milk, as well as Unite Here, the union Cleve Jones works for.

Those working for EFCA and ENDA have joined forces in many states, at least in name, but as this post points out the LGBTQ community has not been outspoken in support for EFCA, nor do most of us know about it.

Coalition building is an integral part of the what will make our movement succeed and our brothers and sisters in labor know how to fight to win.

Even if it were true that unions were racist/sexist/homophobic in the past, why should we just resign ourselves to being powerless against both bosses and bigots? Join a union and push for them to support your rights, if you think they're not doing it right now.

How about protecting workers choice by preserving the secret ballot? The latest union spin is that the secret ballot won't go away under EFCA. It does if the union organizer can get 50% to sign their card through any means necessary. I actually worked for a union in DC and left due to homophobia. They are all about collecting dues.

The fact that some (or even many) union activists have been racist/sexist/homophobic is actually an argument for challenging that racism/sexism/homophobia, not running away from it. The people in power need us to be divided by racism, sexism, and homophobia because if they divide us against each other, we can't unite against them. Show me a world free of oppression, and I'll support abstaining from union work.

And Subterranean Fire by Sharon Smith is also another great book to read about the history of radical working class struggle and how unions have actually been vehicles for challenging racism, sexism, and homophobia in the labor movement and from the bosses.

EFCA does NOT take away the secret ballot. One way the secret ballot can be had is codified in the NLRA section 9(e). Which states that a 30% minority can force a decertification election. Since, according to the language of EFCA, a card check election is not an "election", the decertification can happen immediately after the union is formed.

A union is a workplace democracy. Just like a state's democracy it can be corrupted or led by bigots. Some democracies are corrupt, but does that invalidate the concept? Hell no!